Tracking sentiment
For radio and digital audio advertisers, paying closer attention to how people felt during the past year was vital in identifying and adapting to behavioural changes. Katie Bowden, Global’s director of commercial audio explains
Back in March 2020, as uncertainty grew and the pandemic began, we knew Global had to be on the front-foot with recommendations made to advertisers at this troubled time.
Many said: “We don’t know if it’s even right to be active in this market.”
It was a tough call for everyone but we soon recognised how critical it was to understand people’s actual, and changing, sentiment about the situation we were all suddenly facing.
We already had masses of live, real-time data through our connected platform, showing who listened to what, and where/how, but this didn’t track people’s feelings.
So we launched the weekly Global Insights Study, our biggest ever audience tracker and over the past 13 months, we’ve spoken to more than 13,000 people.
This powerful piece of on-going research ensured we had the very latest consumer insight and understanding, enabling us and our advertisers to identify and adapt to behavioural changes as they happened.
The behaviours we’ve seen emerge over the past year have all been driven by three fundamental needs of Security, Connection and Meaning – and understanding this has since allowed us to predict attitude and behaviour changes.
But when I think back to April 2020, people’s need for reassurance had emerged strongly from the study and so our main advice was for advertisers to be active because reassuring customers was a priority.
This helped us to offer specific support to grocery retailers, such as Tesco and Aldi, on how they should talk to customers. People wanted to know essential things like when to go to the shops if they weren’t a frontline worker.
Weekly insight updates were key, allowing advertisers to change messaging quickly, based on restrictions in local areas – and as a medium, audio was flexible enough to facilitate this.
From reassurance to company to positivity
After the early days of the first lockdown, we heard from people how they were craving connection. A want for news and entertainment moved to entertainment and companionship.
By July 2020, active listening sessions across our portfolio of radio brands had risen 40% while listening hours had shot up 59% year-on-year.
Notably, when things were most uncertain, listening hours to nostalgic stations such as Heart 70s and 80s grew 45% -suggesting people were choosing brands that reminded them of safer times.
Podcasts became another accelerating trend in that first lockdown and have grown steadily through the pandemic.
According to IAB UK’s recent Digital Adspend Report, the digital audio market grew by 17% in the past year and more than a third of that was podcasts.
Popular examples for us on DAX were Lockdown Parenting Hell with Rob Beckett and Josh Widdecombe (launched in April 2020), as well as The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X’s podcast.
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Comedy podcasts specifically have grown the most – 107% year-on-year – and this chimed with the insight study, showing people wanted light relief, particularly after the first six months of the pandemic.
Subsequently, we have worked with brands including Andrex to move into a more playful space with podcast advertising.
Then, in September/October 2020, we saw a big spike in positivity, plus people wanting to connect back to their social groups.
This was an opportunity for advertisers to change tone, with the study very starkly showing how people were fed-up hearing about the pandemic.
This insight helped identify the right time to be more upbeat and ensured advertisers were able to resonate with listeners.
Positivity was a theme again in March 2021, after the Prime Minister announced his roadmap.
Just 48 hours later, the study found 27% of people had made concrete plans, proving what a pivotal time it was for advertisers to be front-of-mind as consumers chose where and how to spend.
However, as an example of how quickly things can change, just a month earlier in February, that need for connection had returned to the insight study.
This enabled us to quickly build and amplify the ‘Have a Proper Chat‘ campaign (pictured), where mobile phone operator, giffgaff provided members with free calls and text messages between 6 and 7pm on Thursday 18 February – encouraging people across the UK to pick up the phone to someone who may have needed to talk.
A changing desire for ‘meaning’
As well as being a tremendous success for advertisers and our agencies, the study has also informed our own creative idea generation. When it comes to branded content, we can very quickly see what people want more of.
Critical insight about the future has flowed too with seven in 10 UK adults agreeing life will never be exactly the same, while 38% said their lives will change in some way for the long-term… and 41% don’t want their life to go back to exactly how it was.
That’s why we plan to continue with the weekly tracker for the foreseeable future, especially as it has recently shown how two thirds of people plan to spend as much time out of the house as possible.
This is invaluable insight to suggest amplifying targeting methods with Outdoor media and we’re also now working on the right messaging for advertisers as we move out of the restrictions from June.
Meaning has come to the fore and the study shows how many people now value different things to before, and that’s also connected to their views on diversity, inclusion and sustainability.
We are seeing a huge increase in advertiser requests on how to speak to consumers on such subjects.
Advertisers can never have too much insight to shape messaging and this new era of conscious advertising is reflective of how media planning is changing.
We now help shape objectives with a much more collaborative and creative approach using the insight study to inform messaging, tone and creative so it resonates more widely.
If we’ve all learned one thing during this difficult period, it’s never to assume anything.